baking cheats: cake flour.

First off, anyone who has their life together enough to have cake flour in their pantry at any given time, this blog may not be for you. 

When baking, I constantly find myself without insanely specific things (which I otherwise rarely use) and, in absence of, I cannot proceed. Cake flour always seems to be one of these things. And why should I stock cake flour? It's so easy to make yourself, there's really no need to bother letting it take up space in my desperately small pantry shelf. 

Whenever a recipe calls for cake flour, don't ignore it. I have in my naive youth, and it never turns out well. Cake flour has lower levels of protein and gluten than plain or all-purpose flour, and that profoundly affects the result. Cake flour produces a lighter cake and nicer crumb and crust, so if a recipe calls for it, don't ignore! 

However don't go running out to the first specialty shop you find for the stuff, it's easy enough to make yourself...

HOW TO MAKE CAKE FLOUR

you will need 

plain or all-purpose four 

cornstarch (or, in Dublin, cornflour)

your best measuring skills

measure out the amount of flour you'll need for your recipe into a sifter placed over a bowl. 

for every cup of flour called for, take out two tablespoons and return it to the flour bin. 

replace with two tablespoons of cornstarch. 

sift flour and cornstarch together thoroughly, at least half a dozen times. the cornstarch needs to be fully incorporated into the flour, and the flour needs good aerating. 

et voila! you have yourself ready-to-use cake flour. easy as pie... or cake. :)